Long term economic impact of climate change not worth short term gain
Our senator says it costs too much to address climate change.
This month is proof that it costs too much not to. Once again devastating floods struck Central Texas. Once again hurricanes of historic ferocity battered the Gulf Coast.
Ted Cruz says he doesn’t want to sacrifice jobs or money to fight climate change. But the truth is extreme weather due to a changing climate is already costing us thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. And it’s going to get much, much, much worse.
Unless we act.
Cruz and his former aide, Chip Roy, now running for congress from Hays County, say we can’t know for sure. They say there are scientists on both sides of the question.
But it’s just not true, not in any meaningful sense, anyway. President Trump’s own scientists believe climate change is real and caused by human activity (in whole or in part). Our military planners plan for it; NASA embraces it; the leading scientists of the most educated and prosperous nations on earth almost uniformly preach it; and the latest surveys among scientists indicate that 97 percent – yes, 97 percent – of scientists in the field believe it.
This month an all-star international panel declared that we have only 10-12 years left to do something about climate change before the effects become disastrous and possibly irreversible. We’ve procrastinated too long already. It’s here, now, for anyone to witness: melting ice caps, worse droughts, worse wild fires, worse floods, worse hurricanes.
The climate is becoming more extreme and inhospitable. Our children and our grandchildren will ask what we did when we had the chance.
And yet a small group within the Republican Party block any effort to deal with the problem, and are even rolling back climate change measures. This used to be a bipartisan issue. Since when have Americans – Texans – been afraid of a challenge?
Since when have we become so fearful that we hide from unpleasant truth? We are a great and optimistic nation. We can solve this without wrecking our economy. Otherwise, our economy will be wrecked soon enough. Winning one more election shouldn’t be worth it.
We often hear that American should lead the world in science and technology. We say we want more STEM students. We spend our treasure for great universities, the best in the world. And then we ignore what these people we raised and educated tell us – or at least Cruz does.
There may be other reasons to send Ted Cruz and Chip Roy to Congress. But you have to ask yourself, can we afford it?
